Southern Africa Safari 2017 – Day 22

The Beautiful Cedarberg

We must be the worlds greatest optimists; today we drive down to Lamberts Bay as we were told that flowers had been seen, but again it was a disappointment.

However we were able to do our good deal for the day when we came across a security company vehicle on the side of the road and they had run out of petrol some 10kms from Lamberts Bay so we gave one of their party a lift into town and told him if he is still on the road when we go back to Clanwilliam we will pick him up.

Lamberts Bay has a fish factory and a potato chip manufacturing plant that supplies a lot of the fast food outlets in the Western Cape with chips, I assume they par cook and pack, after all this is a potato growing area. The odour of fish is very evident in this town and although we did not see any fish we could certainly smell them.

In the afternoon we travelled up into the Cedarberg and saw how low the water in the dam was, but the scenery was great, but very little in the way of flowers.

Tomorrow we leave for the Tankwa Karoo National Park our second last stop on this our Sothern Africa Safari.

You can see where the dam supposed to be now it is beach

Southern Africa Safari 2017 – Day 21

These flowers were seen at Concordia north of Springbok

 Our intention to travel home via the West Coast was to see the flowers, but alas, as with yesterday the flowers were few and far between. They say that for a good flower showing in the Western part of South Africa in August and September it needs to rain in March/April to germinate the seeds from the previous year and then get good winter rain and we all know that it has been a dismal year as far as rainfall in the Cape is concerned.

Quiver trees in South Africa as well as Namibia

Flowers what flowers

That is my favourite flower in the centre of some Namaqualand daisy's

Before we left the Springbok area we went to Concordia north of Springbok as our host said that there had been reports of some good sighting of flowers and there was a fair show. On our way to Clanwilliam we hunted flowers everywhere from Skilpad to the Namaqua National Park and the best we found was on the side of the road.

The photo does not do these flowers justice

Like the elephants of Madumu nature has dictated and dented our expectations and the Spring flowers of West South Africa this year were a damp squib. We took the whole day to get to Clanwilliam and our hosts at Saint du Barry, Wally and Joan had reserved a table for us at Reinhold's and we had a superb dinner.

Southern Africa Safari 2017 – Days 17, 18, 19 & 20

Okavango River at Rundu

Hakusembe Lodge Grounds

Denise negotiating

Pretty bushveld

Kalahari Sands

Our room at Canyon Roadhouse

Bathroom at Canyon Roadhouse

Old vehicles 0n display at the Roadhouse

Station masters house

  

Day 17

After a very pleasant stay at Hakusembe and believe it or not in the same room as we occupied in 2015 we head for Fiume Lodge and Game Farm just outside Grootfontein.

We wondered what we were in for when we left the road and went through two sliding gates along a very rocky road to Fiume Lodge, which was like an oasis, in the midst of dry bushveld it had 8 rooms and they were well appointed. Outside the Lodge there was a water hole and a salt lick, which later that afternoon attracted Zebra, Oryx, Springbok, Wart Hog and there was a host of birdlife and a couple of resident bush babies. It was the ideal stop over for travellers to Etosha, Caprivi and North East Botswana and all the national parks in that area.

Day 18

We headed for Gobabis today getting away fairly early although they had a power outage that affected the whole North East Namibia so we are not the only ones that have power cuts and they had no idea when it would be back on and no one in Namib Power could tell them what the problem was, we were very empathetic!

We wanted to see the Central parts of Namibia and today we got our wish, but we could not rely on the Garmin to take us there through the C and D roads and I had to revert to the one map book I had, which does not have the road number changes in so half the time we relied on the cars compass.

Today it must have been Wart Hog open day, we saw literally hundreds, most managing to get through the fences along side the road, because we all know the grass is greener on the other side.

This part of Namibia consist of huge cattle farms alternatively game farms, when I say huge, I mean huge, we were told that they are up to 15,000 hectares in size. The vastness and open spaces in Namibia never fail to astound us.

We arrive in Gobabis in the late afternoon and we are staying at Gobabis Guest House, which is located just outside the town, but interestingly it is truly mixed housing with large houses mixed with township houses and everything in between with some roads tarred and some gravel, but you can see that trust has not been built between neighbours with the “haves” living behind high walls, all windows fitted with burglar bars. Walking down to town at night is not recommended.

However, the accommodation was good and the dinner was home cooked roast chicken, with some delightful pumpkin fritters, crispy roast potatoes. Prior to this we had chicken for two nights in a row and Denise was hoping it would not be chicken again, well I could have bet on chicken; luckily the home cooking saved the day.

Day 19

We had breakfast with three guys from South Africa who were on a hunting trip, but had another important duty to do, which was to scatter one of the party’s brother’s ashes in the game farm that they had been visiting and hunting on for 20 years some people have some peculiar places to pick for their final resting place. I am sure the relatives of the game they have shot over the years will be delighted; I leave the rest to your imagination!!!

We once again defy the Garmin and choose to visit Dordabis where I understood they had a weaving industry using Karakul wool, but alas, if it was there it was nowhere to be seen. We took a wrong turning and ended up far further East than we intended, but we did see a lot more of Central Namibia all on excellent gravel roads, some even better than their tar roads. We continued to make good use of the compass with very little help from the Garmin and Tracks for Africa, which seems to be the story of my life as we had the same problems when we travelled to East Africa in 2012.

The Garmin told us that we would arrive at Canyon Roadhouse near the Fish River Canyon at 21h00 at one stage, I told Denise that it was impossible and estimated our arrival time as 18h00 and we eventually arrived at 18h30 just as twilight time approached.

We have a lovely room and we enjoyed a non-chicken dinner and almost a bottle of wine to celebrate our last night in Namibia with a vow to return again. Canyon Roadhouse is quite quirky with an old cars theme and a popular destination with lots of overseas visitors to the Fish River Canyon itself.

Day 20

On the road to the RSA Border

Scenery that photo's do not do justice to

Our destination today is across the border and an overnight stay in Springbok at Annie’s Cottage a place we have stayed before. We had the most efficient border crossing ever and crossed over in no more than thirty minutes. The road to the border is another straight one, but the scenery alleviated the boredom.

We could well be disappointed with the flowers this year as although there were some flowers on the side of the road as we approached Springbok they were not the profusion that they are known for. The guest house Manager said they had 4mm of rain in both June and July and unless there is rain in the next week or two it would be deemed a failure in this area. We hope the situation improves as we travel south, but there is nothing we can do about it, it is nature’s way and the B----y weather and we can come again next year.

Our next stop is in Clanwilliam and this time next week we will be back in Knysna, if we do not decide to continue the journey.

Happy Birthday Mathew hope you had a very good day and all the best for the year ahead, we love you.

Southern Africa Safari 2017 – Days 14, 15 &16

Southern Africa Safari 2017 – Days 14, 15 &16

Another African Sunrise over the Chobe River

Collect Moments, Not Things (Aarti Khurana)

Day 14

The above saying is pretty apt for us and others who lost their homes and all their things.

We managed to get away reasonably early from Caprivi River Lodge and following Keith Rooken-Smith’s advise we had a tar road all the way to Sangila .then we hit a very sandy rock and roll section all the way to the entrance gate to the Mamili National Par.

The variety of game in Chobe is amazing

 We were told at the gate that at this time of year as the water levels in the Okavango swamps drops through evaporation the wildlife and in particular the elephants migrate across onto the islands in the swamps where there is an abundance of their favourite food. I recall we went to one of these islands in a mokoro (canoe) in June 2015 and saw a lot of palms which our guide told us the fruit is really enjoyed by elephants. So it looks like one should go to the Okavango in the dry months August to October and to Mamili and Muhombo at the start of the rains in November/December, deep into the rainy season I understand the roads in these parks cannot be navigated and we saw signs of that in our travels where there are deep ruts in the black cotton soil (I think this is an East African name for sticky deep mud) I must research this phenomenon.

We did see wildlife, but not in any great numbers and we believe they should rename Mamili; Wart Hog park as we saw a lot of them. The real event of the day was when I got stuck in deep sand with a consistency of face powder. Now imagine this, we have not seen another vehicle in 3 hours and we are buried is sand up to the running boards, without a word passing between Denise and I, well not ones I can put into print, I get down Roger Hogarth’s shovel and Denise goes off to get dry wooden branches to put under the front of the wheels and she tells me later her fall back plan was I should go back 500metres and collect elephant bones lying by the side of the road and she would shovel.

We named this one Ilean she would not move away from the tree

Against this background we were told by Rangers, Lee and Norah at the gate that we could well see lions now I understand Denise’s logic of taking over the shovel duties. The temperature at this time is 30 degrees centigrade and I am sweating like a pig. It took two runs at getting out and when the wheels finally started to bite all I could hear was Denise yelling at the top of her voice go, go, go.

After that we decided to go onto our next destination; Namushasha River lodge, which is located on the banks of the Kwando River and a lovely lodge it is too. We have a very nice room right on the river and a short nap is necessary, but Denise decides it is pay back time and I should do the clothes wash and wash the shoes that were covered in and full of sand from Mamili.

We have a very nice dinner and crash early.

There were so many beautiful specimens of Kudu on this journey

Day 15

We awoke this morning to the grunts of hippo right outside our front door and saw that as a good omen.

In the light of the good omen, we decide to do a self drive - game drive into the Muhombo Game Park also bordered by the Kwando River and because the Swiss couple we met at Chobe said that they saw hundreds of elephant, just our luck they have all migrated to the Okavango Swamps in the last three days, because all we saw of elephants was very dried calling cards, we did see some wildlife, but not a great deal to write home about.

You could call us persistent, devils for punishment, or just plain optimists, as we had also signed up to go on a boat/game drive into the Bwabwata Game Park yesterday.

Well we can confidently say it was one of, if not the best game drive, we have been on, we had sightings of Red Lechwe, Reed Buck, Impala who, a bit like in the Kruger they are known as the Macdonalds, one on every corner, Sable antelope, giraffe, buffalo, big herds and very close, and then at the Horseshoe, so named because of the shape of the river at this point, we saw over 150 elephant and although we were some distance away when the first group arrived, we were even standing around drinking Windhoek lager and eating a “buffet” a bit more variety than our last buffet feast, then we ended up surrounded and we could smell them and they certainly could smell us and they were not comfortable with the smell and they approached us from up the river, behind us and the other side of us, our guide and driver had left it a little late and the elephants were getting very irritated, luckily not irritated enough to attack us as we were sitting ducks as they only had to charge 10 metres.

We get back to our boat and it is twilight time and as we are approaching the Lodge we see a hippo right in front of us, the boat pilot decides to put foot and this annoys the hippo and he dives under, right alongside the boat and catches something that sounds like the propeller, now he is very upset and he chases us well above water level with his huge mouth agape less than 2 metres behind the boat. We think the boat pilot also got a fright as he sped away, because he nearly smacks into the reeds. We also think that this hippo has a personal vendetta against this boat and waits for its arrival every evening and one day he will get his own back as he nearly did today.

Keith of Caprivi River Lodge told me he and two elderly clients had a lucky escape from upset elephants when a baby got left behind and was squealing and although Keith was acting responsibly parked some 15 metres away, the elephants did not see it that way and almost destroyed the vehicle, they were lucky to escape with minor injuries. Keith put the incident in perspective and it was much the same with us today he said “it all happened so fast you did not have a chance to s- - t yourself” 

Day 16

This must have been all of 5 metres in the Kwando river

 We have now reached Rundu and we are staying at the Hakusembe Lodge (part of the Gondwana Group) we have stayed here before in 2015; it is located on the banks of the Okavango River and across the river is Angola. It is, I am told, the place to come fishing but there is also a good deal of bird life and it is a convenient stop over between Windhoek and the North Eastern game parks of Namibia and Botswana if one comes via the West coast of South Africa.

We had to go back into the Bwabwata Game Park, well when one thinks that we saw 150 elephant at Horseshoe yesterday, today you would have thought there are no elephant in this park as Horseshoe was deserted bar a few Reedbuck and Impala and we also covered a good deal of the park in our 4 hours there, however what we did have was some very good practise driving in thick sand which was again like face powder.

The B8 road to Rundu must be one of the most boring it is dead straight and with very few bends, there are warnings of elephant, wild dog and kudu and we did not see one, must be the wrong time of year!

I am going to try and download this onto the blog today and hope I have better luck than at Namushasha.

Southern Africa Safari 2017- Days 11, 12 and 13

Southern Africa Safari 2017- Days 11 & 12

Day 11

This was a day off from driving and some important tasks needed to be accomplished, the first being laundry, and Denise said she would do the smalls when we saw the price list for laundry, which was split into wash only, iron only and wash and iron, without quoting prices all we can say is that laundry in hotels and lodges is a good profitable business.

To start the day off we went for a walk up the Chobe River towards the Ngoma Bridge, which took us nearly two hours, then the tasks, I had to tell you we were still in the land of the living in the form of the blog, which takes forever using the Lodges Wi Fi connection not to mention my slow typing speed and the up loading of photos, I vowed to do it daily after a marathon 3 hours by this time Denise had done all the washing, I think I owe her nearly R500 and that was just for underwear and socks and she read half a book, repacked her suitcase and one hundred other things.

We booked a boat cruise on the Chobe, which would take two and a half hours together with a Swiss couple. Other than some Waterbuck, Zebra, Giraffe, Buffalo and Baboons we did not see Elephant, which we thought unusual for this area, although it is some 70kms from Kasane and we only went 14kms down the river. What we did see was an abundance of birdlife, I cannot remember all the names and my bird book went up in flames so I had to rely on the guide, suffice to say it was considerable.

The other highlight of the trip was one free drink and the guide then handed out what he called the Buffet, which was dry salty cracks and that was the sum total of the snacks! As we got to shore he said “you have not eaten the entire buffet” we all managed to keep a straight face, but had a good laugh afterwards.

As we got back to the Lodge the sun was setting what a spectacular sight our Africa sunrises and sunsets are. As we approach the lodge we came across a herd of buffalo, which numbered close to a thousand and the sound of 1000 buffalo munching grass was quite an experience and unbelievable.

Our 5 course dinner consisted ravioli stuffed with butternut and sage, followed by delicious pea soup with small slice of toast with melted cheese, the mains course was roast Springbok, potato cake, carrots and broccoli and if you had room there was lemon meringue pie, not to mention the buffet on the boat, now we needed that walk to Ngoma Bridge.

Day12

Despite the huge meal we slept very well, I find it difficult to describe waking up in the wilds of Africa and hearing all the sounds, it is like an opera, it starts with the early bird giving a twitter almost apologetic asking if anyone else was awake, then another would join in the conversation and slowly the cacophony of sound would grow to a crescendo with the fish eagle giving the cry of Africa, only interrupted by the howl of a hyena, the barks of zebras and the croaks of frogs who were not going to be left out of the chorus, which consisted white egrets, yellow billed storks, pelicans, grey herons, pied and malachite king fishers, starlings, wood hoopoes, purple breasted rollers and  fork tailed drongo’s, all with their own welcome of the new day, but it all seemed to fit in and is pleasant on the ear.

Then there is the African sunrise and despite what my granddaughter Shannon says they are not all the same and they are wonderful to witness.

We leave the Chobe River behind and head for Katima Mulilo and the great Zambezi River where we are staying at the Caprivi River Lodge right on the banks of the Zambezi across which lies Zambia.

The lodge is owned and run by Keith and Mary Rooken Smith who hail from Kenya and Angola, Keith’s mother Heather lives here and we brought a small parcel up for her from her daughter Lindsay who lives in Albertinia in South Africa. Heather has written a book about her life in Kenya, Angola, Namibia and South Africa called Daisy’s Daughter - Our Lives for Africa, well worth a read especially if you have lived in one of these countries over the last 80 odd years or even if you have not had that pleasure it clearly describes the fortitude of Africa’s early settlers their resilience through some harrowing times and their contribution to the development of Africa.

We have two nights here before we go onto Namushasha Lodge near Kongola on the Kwando River also in the Caprivi now known as the Zambezi Province. We have 8 more days in Namibia before we cross back into South Africa.

Our house re-build is well underway and we thank Harry for keeping us informed and representing us at all the Friday site meetings. The house at one end is up to window height and at this rate it will be close to roof height in 16 days time we are in for some exciting times.

Day 13 
We went down the Zambezi by road to Schukmannsburg in the Zambezi flood plains, it is difficult to comprehend that this flood plain when the river is in full flood can be as wide as 70kms. For a long way you have no idea that the river is 200metres from the road or less, we saw some birdlife, but no wildlife at all, we hope to rectify that tomorrow.

Heather Rooken-Smith who is 86 years old shared some of her experiences of publishing her book Daisy's Daughter - Our Lives for Africa, which turns out not to be an easy task, she very kindly signed two books for us and one for Susanne in Eastford Vale who so enjoyed the book I loaned to her.

I have to apologise, I am hoping to load the words, but am having a problem uploading the photos, which I will do tomorrow Day 14     

Southern African Safari 2017 Days 8, 9, & 10

Mum and Baby, they are not all this cute

Day 8

After 3 days in Johannesburg staying with Michael, Elisma, Claudia and the girls Sinead, Amber lee and Naomi we set off for Martins Drift in Botswana, we thank Michael and Elisma for their hospitality.

We got away by 08h00 going via Bela Bela (Warmbaths), Molimole (Nylstroom), Vaalwater, Lephalale (Ellis Ras), Monte Christo Tom Burke and Groblers Bridge where we crossed the Limpopo River and the border into Botswana with no problems getting to our destination Kwa Nogeng Lodge.

Our room was the very same one that we stayed in on our epic East African trip right on the slow moving greasy, green Limpopo River. The road can be long and boring, but there are a lot of game farms bordering the road and we saw giraffe, zebra, hartebeest, duiker, kudu, and wildebeest amongst others.

We stopped at Vaalwater en route and Denise had to get some biltong and dry wors, the display was amazing you could choose from Giraffe, Eland, Kudu, Zebra, Wildebeest and Beef amongst others. The shop attendant said the giraffe had a distinct taste and some of her customers preferred it and she insisted they all tasted different.

Mopani Trees all colours and hues

Game farming seems to be the dominant activity although there are some big fruit and vegetable farms, maize and ranching. Like most of South Africa we have passed through it is very dry, but it is still officially winter.

We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and no, we do not cross the Equator on this trip.

We had an enjoyable dinner and then it was lights out.

Day 9

We departed Kwa Nogeng at 08h00 after a nice breakfast where two eggs are compulsory. The last time we were on this section of road in 2013 Claudia drove and it was 120kms of hell, not because Claudia was driving, but because the road was so pot holed, if you drove in a straight line you would or could have been pulled over for drunken driving, but we were pleasantly surprised and the road to Francistown via Selibwe Pikwie was very good.

The Mopani shrubs/trees alongside the road were full of colour from green to brown and all shades in between.

Road works are, like in so many countries in Africa we have had the pleasure of travelling through, being maintained or built by the Chinese, there is even a Chinese oriental bazaar in Francistown. We spoke too soon as unfortunately the road for 70kms south of Francistown was very badly potholed and there is nothing worse than a pot holed tar road, but with the amount of very large vehicles travelling mainly from Zambia, many  loaded with copper billets it is not surprising.

I wanted to get off the beaten track and saw from my Africa map book there was a road that passed through Sowa Pan up to our intended destination of Nata, but alas my Tracks for Africa on my Garmin did not recognise such a road, so we turned around and luck was on our side. A vehicle was parked on the side of the road so we pulled along side and enquired of the two Tswana gentlemen if they knew of the road we were looking for and they said no not that one, but they knew of another one some 30kms back the way we had come and they would show us when we would turn off if we wanted to follow them, as long as we did not mind travelling at 120kph, which we agreed to do, after all that was the speed limit and we had been very diligent in sticking to all the speed limits and had escaped at least two speed fines.

At the turn off we got explicit instructions on where to go, that turned out to be better than any map or Garmin. It was a well maintained wide gravel road that appeared to service a diamond mine in the area and we arrived at Nata at 16h30 dying for a cold beer to wash the dust out of our throats.

The Northgate Lodge, they use the term Lodge very loosely in Botswana, it was more of a motel and if there had been any other choice I would have taken it. The room was clean, the shower worked fairly well and the bed was comfortable, three of Denise’s measures of a good establishment. However, the paint on the ceiling of the bathroom was flaking and was all over the floor, the TV had only 3 channels two in a language we cannot understand the third was a Supersport channel so we could watch some of the World Athletic Games in London.

We decided to try their restaurant, which was a big mistake, Denise only wanted a salad and asked for a Greek Salad, but alas there was no Greek Salad, but a green salad was available, which turned out to be also unavailable. I had a rump steak, chips and vegetables, which arrived after an hour. The beef was from a cow that had run all the way from Gabarone, the chips were cold, but the veg was hot and it cost R180. Oh well it is just another lesson on travel in Africa. By the way I had researched the hotels in Nata, the two I chose were fully booked 12 months ago and this one did not have rave reviews, now I know why. An observation is that a good staff training course would not go amiss not to mention cooking lessons.

This is what greets you at the picnic spots

Day 10   

We called him Ilean

We got away early having decided the night before that we would have breakfast or brunch en route to our next stop and the Wimpy in Nata has closed down.

We had not gone far on the road North to Kasane when, as Denise wanted to pass 3 trucks, an elephant decided to cross the road between the first and second truck as Denise was passing the third vehicle it was a close call for the second vehicle and the elephant, no guesses as to who would have won.

The route up to this point had fences now there are no fences giving game the option to move freely between Botswana and Namibia. We made good time to Kasane and pulled into Chobe Safari Lodge, where we have stayed before, at 11h00. We enjoyed an excellent brunch washed down with a beer shandy.

We decided to go through the Chobe Game Park to the Ngoma border post and saw considerable amount of game along side the Chobe river and as a word of advise this is where to see game either going to or coming from the river, because when we went away from the river we saw nothing, well almost nothing, we had just commented that we had not even seen an elephant when one strode out of the bush close to the road and blew into my ear, a second later and we may have known what it is like to hit an elephant, or not! We eventually find the A33 a bit like the last time in the Chobe when we exited observed a notice saying restricted access, military vehicles only permitted, but ignorance is bliss.

View from our room - Chobe River

Kudu

Game and more game in Chobe

Spoonbill with friend

Hippos cooling off

Play play between young bulls

 

Ngoma Bridge

We cross the border at 16h00 and other than all the paperwork it was uneventful. We are right on the river at Camp Chobe in a permanent tented camp. It is one of the Gondwana Group hotels and lodges and there is an abundance of birdlife and game in the area. Gondwana has recently acquired this property and are busy renovating and upgrading, but it is very nice and we have a very nice 4 course dinner with a bottle of wine.

Our lodging at Camp Chobe

It is a very moonlit night and the wildlife is very active and buffalo were munching grass right outside our tent.       

Southern Africa Safari 2017 Days 4, 5, 6 and 7

Eish Airways in the middle of nowhere. Forgot to include this photo with the last post.

Day 4

Unfortunately Denise came down with a dose of flu and we thought it wise to take it easy on our second day at Bushmans Nek so after a game of “Old Mans Marbles” bowls to those not in the know. This area has also suffered from the drought and is evidenced by the amount of veld fires in the area and the state of their bowling greens.

I had parked my car under some trees near our room and I recall Sinead saying “pigs cannot fly because they have not got wings” well the state of my car the next morning I believe pigs indeed do fly as it was covered in pig poo from top to bottom and took me well over an hour to clean enough for me to see out of the windows. I am hoping that I do not have a repeat performance having changed where I park to an area away from the trees.

We did drive down to the border with Lesotho only 3kms away and on asking the border policeman where the road went to on the other side he enlightened me that only people on foot or on horseback go through the border. A number of the Natal National Park trails do start from this point most of them going up to caves in the Drakensberg mountains, but we decided to give it a miss on this occasion.

Bushmans Nek have a lot of sporting facilities such as fly fishing for rainbow trout, squash, tennis, put putt, bowls and mountain bike trails so it is a good place for families with over active children.

We make plans with the hotel management to take a pack breakfast as we need to get away before 06h00 to get to Johannesberg by 13h00.

Day 5 

Well we get away by 05h45 after battling to find a receptionist who is supposed to be on duty 24 hours, pay the bill, load the car, which I am please to say had not been attacked by flying pigs. I was still dark when we got underway and it was a fairly slow 45kms to Underberg where we met up with the tar road which was to take us to Howick and then onto the N3 up to Johannesburg.

We regrettably left our pack breakfast that the hotel staff had diligently prepared so we pulled into one of the petrol stations and enjoyed a welcome breakfast. We made good time until we got to the Rivonia off ramp when we hit a traffic jam caused by SA roads authority deciding that lunchtime on a Saturday was a good time to paint the lines on the highway, but it did not end there; we were to meet family and friends at the Purple Tulip near Broadacres, which is on Cedar Road near Steyn City and on this road they are attempting to widen the road and keep the road open. I had forgotten the volume of traffic in Johannesburg and I did not enjoy this reminder after a journey of +/- 675kms.

We had a lovely afternoon with family and friends who were there to greet us and had brought with them presents that we will find very useful in our new home, what they forgot to do was give us a trailer to take them back to Knysna. It was a lovely surprise and although it was not hard for anyone to think of what to get us, as we have nothing, a lot of thought and effort went into selecting the gifts and we thank each and every one of those lovely people.

The only downside of the day was my team the Lions losing to the Crusaders in the final of the Super Rugby competition, but I thought they did well considering they were down to 14 men for at least three quarters of the game, I also think the red card was a bit too harsh, oh well it is only a game!!!

Day 6

Michael decided we needed fattening up and made us a wonderful Potjie lunch after we had a good sleep with a little help from a sleeping tablet. In all it was a relaxing day, which was very welcome after quite a bit of driving in the last 5 days.

Day 7

We had a little bit of shopping to do today and Denise and I ended up with Claudia and Granddaughters Sinead, Amber Lee and Naomi terrorising two centres in Centurion, surprisingly we did achieve what we set out to do. Tomorrow we start our trip into Botswana and will spend tomorrow night at Kwa Nogeng at Martins Drift in Botswana and we are looking forward to the second part of our trip and hopefully will bring you more interesting news of our adventure.

Three Labacher Granddaughters terrorising the Irene Village Mall

All ready for the concrete pour on Monday

Our good friend Harry who is our site manager on the rebuild of our house has kept us well informed although we could not help in locating where Telkom lines came into the house, but he will make a plan as we know he will.

Courtesy of Tanja a photo of Snuggles content in his holiday boarding accommodation